THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SATANIC CULT INVOLVEMENT: AN ...

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Although the realist and constructionist accounts of satanic phenomena begin from
opposing assumptions, their perspectives are not necessarily mutually exclusive. One may
argue that the Satanism scare is largely an ideological construction, while still asserting
that secret satanic organisations do exist, and that their membership could quite possibly
have increased over the past three decades.
The relevant issue here is not the existence of Satanism, or even its alleged growing
appeal, but rather the discrepancy between the actual phenomenon and its discursive
construction as an evil epidemic which, ifunchecked, will overthrow Christian civilisation.
Furthermore, the same sociological reasons advanced by the constructionists for the
historically recent appearance of the satanic subversion myth may be cited as reasons for
the actual increase in satanic activity. Institutional instability, the erosion of parental
authority, the resurgence of Christian fundamentalism, increasing spiritual alienation, and
increasingly dysfunctional family dynamics may not only generate an irrational fear of a
secret satanic movement, perceived as being responsible for all social ills. They may also
produce an actual satanic movement, which purports to provide a solution to the very ills
attributed to it by anti-Satanist ideology. The two divergent perspectives may also be
reconciled on the issue of satanic cult survivor narratives. It is possible to agree that many
alleged survivors are deluded, while simultaneously claiming that at least some ofthem are
not, and that their accounts are reasonably reliable chronicles of actual satanic cult
expenences.
Ofcourse, the precautions taken in screening the research subjects (see Chapter Thirteen),
do not guarantee the "objective truth" of the events reported by these research subjects.
However, it is doubtful whether any meaningful human experience can ever be objectively
true in this sense. The only such objective truths that may be established in qualitative
research are the names, ages, birth dates, places of residence and sex of the research
subjects. Everything else relevant to the research is refracted through subjects' subjective
experience, and by definition, cannot be objectively true. Ifthe criterion of objective truth
does not pertain to qualitative research in general, it is doubly irrelevant in this specific